* * *
\n
\nThe Assyrian Christians, a non-Arab, Semitic people with a 5,000-year
\npresence in northern Iraq, constitute some 5% to 10% of the Iraqi population.
\nDespite constant threats from Muslim neighbors, they have kept their ethnic
\nand linguistic identity alive and maintain a flourishing diaspora in
\nAustralia, Europe and North America. During the British Mandate that lasted
\nfrom 1920 to 1932, the British employed the Assyrians as protectors of the
\nCrown’s interests in Iraq, only to abandon them shamefully when a newly
\nindependent Iraq entered the League of Nations in 1932. A year later, using
\nthe Assyrians’ prior alliance with the British as a pretext for violence, the
\nnew Iraqi government launched an anti-Christian jihad in which scores of
\nAssyrian civilians were murdered and their villages set on fire. Arab
\nnationalists have continued to draw upon this Assyrian-British connection as
\nevidence that Assyrians are agents of the Christian West. <\/p>\n
Saddam’s Baath Party, which came to power in 1968 as an Arab nationalist
\nmovement with ideological roots in European fascism, officially denies the
\nexistence of the Assyrians as a separate ethnic group and has implemented
\nnumerous policies in order to both ethnically cleanse the Assyrians from Iraq
\nand to erase their identity as a distinct people. Iraqi officials, seeking to
\nphysically obliterate Assyrian civilization, have been involved in the
\nlooting and smuggling of priceless Assyrian artifacts. Speaking Assyrian in
\npublic carries great risks. The recent savage murder and beheading of a nun
\nin Baghdad indicates the lengths to which the regime will go in order to
\nterrify its Assyrian population. <\/p>\n
The regime has likewise manipulated the U.N. sanctions to further their
\npersecution of Assyrians . In order to participate in the oil-for-food
\nprogram, Assyrians (like their neighbors, the Turkmens) must deny their
\nidentity on all government documents and register as either Arabs or Kurds,
\nthe two officially recognized Iraqi ethnic groups. Should they refuse, they
\nface the prospect of starvation, or banishment to the Kurdish-controlled
\nregion in the northeast, where they face educational discrimination and
\ngeneral persecution at the hands of predominantly Muslim neighbors who
\nsometimes derogatorily refer to Assyrians as “Christian Kurds.” Indeed,
\nAssyrians have bitterly accused Kurdish authorities, particularly the Kurdish
\nDemocratic Party, of deliberately working to undermine their rights in
\nnorthern Iraq. <\/p>\n
Given that the majority of Iraqi-Americans are Assyrians and not Arabs,
\nAssyrian-American organizations should be given ample voice in shaping
\ncertain aspects of American foreign policy for a post-Saddam Iraq. It is thus
\nto his credit that President Bush, in his Oct. 7 speech to the U.N. General
\nAssembly, formally addressed Iraq’s repression of its Assyrians . The Bush
\nadministration has taken specific steps to ensure that Assyrian rights be
\nrespected. Partially in response to pressure from Congressman Henry Hyde’s
\nadvocacy on behalf of Assyrian-Americans, the State Department has welcomed
\nAssyrian participation in planning for an Iraq free from Saddam’s grasp.
\nHowever, despite the fact that several Assyrian representatives are involved
\nwith Foggy Bottom’s “Future of Iraq Project,” the predominantly Muslim Iraqi
\nopposition groups have been generally reluctant to partner with the Christian
\nAssyrians . <\/p>\n
This has not stopped Assyrian-American organizations from launching an
\nextensive advocacy campaign on behalf of their brethren in Iraq. This has
\ninvolved countering Kurdish attempts to declare much of the northern region
\ntheir own, including the oil-rich towns of Kirkuk and Mosul, a land-grab
\nwhich they have tried to sweeten by offering the Assyrians and Turkmens
\nrepresentation at a Kurdish parliament-to-be. Understandably, the Assyrians
\nhave rejected the offer. But not many Americans are aware of these
\nbehind-the-scenes tensions. <\/p>\n
The recently formed Assyrian-American League, which calls for a secular and
\ndemocratic Iraq, has hired former Illinois Congressman Michael Flanagan to be
\ntheir lobbyist in Washington. Congressmen and policy planners seriously
\ninterested in the democratization of the region should reach out and work
\nwith this organization, as well as with other credible Assyrian
\norganizations. At the very least, officials tasked with planning for both the
\ncoming war and its aftermath should seek out Assyrian-Americans’ invaluable
\nknowledge of Iraqi society. Assyrian-Americans have, likewise, courageously
\nvoiced their willingness to work with their Jewish compatriots to shape a
\ndemocratic Middle East. <\/p>\n
Given that both Saddam and Persian Gulf-based Islamists might incite mass
\nviolence against the Assyrians in the advent of an American-led attack on
\nIraq, the U.S. has a particular responsibility to prevent a repetition of the
\naforementioned 1933 massacres, in which the British stood idly by as their
\nformer allies were ruthlessly slaughtered. Indeed, the potential for massive
\nethnic violence in northern Iraq between Arabs, Assyrians , Kurds, and
\nTurkmen remains high, particularly if the Baath regime were to fall quickly.
\nThe Bush administration must, therefore, remain cautious in endorsing an
\nofficially recognized Kurdish autonomous region for a federal Iraqi state
\nwithout first providing legal safeguards for Assyrians , as well as for all
\nother ethnic groups in the area. <\/p>\n
The dearth of reliable census material and the results of decades of forcible
\nassimilation in the region combine to make it extremely difficult to evaluate
\ncompeting land claims for oil-rich territories in northern Iraq.
\nNevertheless, under the auspices of the 1932 Declaration of the Kingdom of
\nIraq, Assyrians arguably have viable land claims in the oil-rich Mosul
\nVilayet, a former Ottoman territory that the Council of the League of Nations
\nannexed to Iraq in 1925. Given the fact that Assyrians in northern Iraq have
\nbeen constant victims of ethnic cleansing, the international community should
\ntake their legal claims for land rights and due compensation as seriously as
\nthe competing Kurdish and Turkmen claims on Kirkuk, another oil-rich city
\nwhose dominion is hotly contested, and which could be witness to ethnic
\nstrife in the months and years ahead. <\/p>\n
* * * <\/p>\n
For reasons both moral and tactical, the Bush administration and Congress
\nshould continue, and heighten, its concern for the Assyrians in northern
\nIraq. America now has a golden opportunity to safeguard the rights of one of
\nthe Near East’s most persecuted peoples, and to create a new reality that
\ncould redress various 20th-century injustices that have been perpetrated
\nagainst them. <\/p>\n
Mr. Lewis, a New York-based political analyst, is working on a history of the
\nrealtionship between Great Power politics and ethnic minorities in the
\n20th-century Middle East. <\/p>\n
* * * The Assyrian Christians, a non-Arab, Semitic people with a 5,000-year presence in northern Iraq, constitute some 5% to 10% of the Iraqi population. Despite constant threats from Muslim neighbors, they have kept their ethnic and linguistic identity alive and maintain a flourishing diaspora in Australia, Europe and North America. During the British …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-iraq"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSource:Wall Street Journal, 19.12.2002<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"